Minimal interventions in the bodies of patients are often required as part of diagnostic and therapeutic methods. These measures may include, for example, targeted percutaneous interventions for taking biopsy samples, radiofrequency (RF) ablations, microwave ablations, laser ablations, etc. The intended aim in such methods is to pinpoint a target region in the body of a patient with maximum precision to enable application of the intervention to the region in question. It is furthermore aimed to choose a puncture site and a puncture angle in such a way that no damage is caused to other surrounding tissue, such as blood vessels, for example. Generally, computed tomography (CT) devices, ultrasound devices, X-ray systems, or MR systems can be used as imaging guidance means to ensure precise positioning.
Often, it is also necessary to repeat the intervention at a later time. For example, the intervention may later be repeated to take biopsy samples from the same body region for checking or monitoring purposes, or to reapply painkillers at a site on the body identified as efficacious. It can frequently be very difficult to achieve a reproducibility of such a procedure when, for example, there are long periods of time between the interventions, the target structure is difficult to visualize, or the intervention is performed by a different clinician or a different institution.
Therefore, to achieve the best possible intervention reproducibility, the puncture site and the puncture angle for a percutaneous intervention must be well documented. Monitoring with the aid of an imaging methods as noted above offers a further means of facilitating the procedure. However, in spite of these measures, it is not possible in many cases to achieve a satisfactory degree of reproducibility. Moreover, some imaging methods require the patient to be exposed to ionizing radiation or require a relatively high specific absorption rate (SAR).